Advice for running gritty realism

[Dungeon-noob]

I'm starting a new campaign as DM, and i've decided to use the gritty realism rest variant. In my previous campaigns i've found it very hard to pace out a decent enough challenge for my party in a single day, so i figure spreading the same challenge over a longer period like a week is likely going to be easier.

My party is starting at level 3. They've got a Bladesinger Wizard 3, Artificer Artillerist 3, Bard 1 Palladin 2, Battlemaster 3 (new player) and someone who's currently thinking of changing their Ranger 1 Stars Druid 2 out for a Beast Barbarian 3 instead.

Now as i've gotten into preparing the more detailed elements, i've run into a few things that GR changes that i hadn't immediately thought of, like spell durations and number of short rests per long rest. These obviously rather impact the play and power of certain classes and characters heavily. I've tried looking for useful information online, but there doesn't seem to be too much to find. So i was wondering if the experience of the playground would weigh in on these questions:

A lot of spells would have far shorter durations relative to rests. For some this is obviously not a problem. For others, like for example mage armor, it might well be. This is probably the thorniest issue for me to tangle with. I don't think i can spare the effort to go through the entire spell list and adjust them on a case by case basis. I'm also not sure all that many need or even should be changed. So i haven't found a blanket change that seems right to me. Any constructive feedback would be very welcome.

One other thing i hadn't considered, is that under GR short rests are likely more prominent, with possibly more then 5 or so before a long rest is available. That's a very different dynamic then the standard, and would likely throw off the comperative resource management between classes. I don't think short rest recharge features should be so dominant compared to the base rest system. Which then raises the question if a rule change needs to be implemented to adress that, and if yes, which one.

Finally there is the minor quibble of wondering if i should change any features or magic items to recharge differently. If magic items recharge daily and features don't, they obviously become a more important part of the player's kit.

Help with all of this is much appreciated, especially if someone has ran a campaign with GR. Let me hear it.

[Amnestic]

You could consider changing "8-24 hour" spells/features to "until long rest". Likewise, "10 minute/1 hour" spells could be "until next short rest". You don't need to blanket apply it either, just make a decision on duration on a feature-by-feature basis as it comes up in the game.

You could also, instead of GR, instead go with Slow Natural Healing - long rests don't restore any hit points at all, meaning that their only health restoration comes from hit dice expenditure (and they only get back half their maximum HD per LR) or spells/consumables.

[Sorinth]

Since it sounds like you only care about pacing and not actually a gritty game I would suggest not actually using GR but instead add a requirement to LR that says it needs to be in a real bed in a place meant for sleeping like an inn.

With GR it can screw up your pacing in the other direction by forcing 1 week of downtime when the party is tapped. This way you get the pacing I think you want which is travel + dungeon is one LR worth of resources but you don't force downtime after each adventure since 1 night's rest in the right place is all that's needed. You've created more value in having towns and you can also throw the PCs a long rest mid-adventure by placing a nice resting spot along the way. It can be as simple as encountering some lizardfolk and if the PCs are friendly and negotiate then the lizardfolk will guide them to the village where they can get that LR. You can even make those mid-adventure LR spots have interesting risk vs reward by making it an obvious traps, ie they find a cottage in the woods that's clearly a hag's abode that's being disguised to look inviting and friendly. Since there's now a benefit to going into that trap it becomes a interesting choice for the players.

For spell duration, BG3 went with those long duration spells lasting until the next LR and a maximum limit of 2 SR per LR. Both could work well for you but honestly it's not going to unbalance the game if there are 5 SR for every LR. Yes certain classes would benefit more then others but the game isn't perfectly balanced anyways so a slightly different unbalancing is perfectly fine.

[thoroughlyS]

I am a big fan of the Gritty Realism variant, and always use it when running my campaigns. After many years in multiple campaigns like this, here is how I address your concerns:

A lot of spells would have far shorter durations relative to rests. For some this is obviously not a problem. For others, like for example mage armor, it might well be. This is probably the thorniest issue for me to tangle with. I don't think i can spare the effort to go through the entire spell list and adjust them on a case by case basis. I'm also not sure all that many need or even should be changed. So i haven't found a blanket change that seems right to me. Any constructive feedback would be very welcome.

As a general rule of thumb, I change 1 hour spell durations into 8 hours, and 8 and 24 hours into 7 days. Spells with shorter durations than that are meant to be cast "in combat" and their use case doesn't change with this variant, and longer ones are still maintainable with minimal investment. In my opinion, this preserves how many encounters each spell was designed to apply to. Feel free to deviate from this if a spell feels like it is being used in an unintended manner.

One other thing i hadn't considered, is that under GR short rests are likely more prominent, with possibly more then 5 or so before a long rest is available. That's a very different dynamic then the standard, and would likely throw off the comperative resource management between classes. I don't think short rest recharge features should be so dominant compared to the base rest system. Which then raises the question if a rule change needs to be implemented to adress that, and if yes, which one.

The way I avoid this is by making long rests only 3 days long, and having some days with no encounters at all (meaning situations that expend party resources). Basically, just give the party time enough to long rest when you feel is appropriate.

Finally there is the minor quibble of wondering if i should change any features or magic items to recharge differently. If magic items recharge daily and features don't, they obviously become a more important part of the player's kit.

Magic items should definitely be made to recharge after ~7 days (you can do a little shorter or longer to fit your world's calendar). Otherwise, they will draw WAY too much attention.

[Dungeon-noob]

I am a big fan of the Gritty Realism variant, and always use it when running my campaigns. After many years in multiple campaigns like this, here is how I address your concerns:

As a general rule of thumb, I change 1 hour spell durations into 8 hours, and 8 and 24 hours into 7 days. Spells with shorter durations than that are meant to be cast "in combat" and their use case doesn't change with this variant, and longer ones are still maintainable with minimal investment. In my opinion, this preserves how many encounters each spell was designed to apply to. Feel free to deviate from this if a spell feels like it is being used in an unintended manner.

The way I avoid this is by making long rests only 3 days long, and having some days with no encounters at all (meaning situations that expend party resources). Basically, just give the party time enough to long rest when you feel is appropriate.

Magic items should definitely be made to recharge after ~7 days (you can do a little shorter or longer to fit your world's calendar). Otherwise, they will draw WAY too much attention.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll certainly take that into account. I'm explicitly okay with longer long rests, so i'll keep them at 7 days. But they will indeed have enough time for them. And the magic items will be an easy enough change.

I guess i'll have to do the spells the hard way then. Thanks for the tip there too, i was wondering if something like that was the best answer.

[Catullus64]

A variant on Gritty Realism that I've had success running is what I dub the One Rest System. Under this system, there are no Short or Long rests, just Rests, which are 8 hours long and follow the requirements of a Long Rest.

The rules changes are as follows:

1. Hit Dice are no longer a resource, they're a class mechanic. When you complete a rest, you roll a single HD of the size for your class, add CON modifier, and regain that many HP. Multiclass characters roll all of their differently-sized HD and average the result. At certain character levels, you roll more HD whenever you rest: 2 at 5th Level, 3 at 9th, 4 at 13th, and 5 at 17th.

2. Spellcasters regain spell slots on a rest with a combined level equal to half their overall character level, rounded up. Warlocks regain all spell slots on a rest, and Sorcerers regain a number of Sorcery Points on rest equal to their Charisma modifier.

3. Features which formerly recharge on a Short Rest now recharge on a Rest.

4. Features which formerly recharge on a Long Rest now recharge on 3 rests. Features with multiple uses which formerly recharge on a Long Rest now recover 1 use per Rest.

The advantages of this system are that it accomplishes the main stated goal of slowing down play and spacing out the time frame of adventures, while still allowing a little more granularity of decision-making about how long to rest. It also integrates more smoothly with different class features, and preserves much of their balance paradigm relative to one another.

[Unoriginal]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll certainly take that into account. I'm explicitly okay with longer long rests, so i'll keep them at 7 days. But they will indeed have enough time for them. And the magic items will be an easy enough change.

I guess i'll have to do the spells the hard way then. Thanks for the tip there too, i was wondering if something like that was the best answer.

Gritty Realism is about making the game gritty (although not realist).

In other words, it's about making so PCs do *not* have the time to Long Rest in a typically-paced adventure.

So extending the duration of spells or making sure the PCs have enough time to rest run contrary to the only purpose of Gritty Realism.

Worth noting that one of your players want to play a Beast Barbarian, which rely on a Long Rest ressource, and so does the Wizard's dance, magic dance. So you'll have to handle that as well.

[Witty Username]

Spellcasters are ok enough that spells don't need modification.

Everyone has some amount of at will abilities to keep participating, high yield spells just need to be applied with consideration.

The big thing I would note is random encounters are going to have greater effect on adventure pace. Consider reducing difficultly or frequency of them if it becomes an issue.

[Pex]

It really doesn't matter how long in game-world time a long rest is - one night, one week, one month, one million years. What matters is how often in real world time game sessions the party gets that rest. Have any justification you want for game world verisimilitude of why a rest is as long as it is; let the players rest already. Real world time and effort is required to play the game. Players wants to use their stuff. They want their stuff back. That is how the game is supposed to work. If they haven't been able to use their stuff for 8 game sessions because you refuse to let them have a week of downtime to rest, the players will be frustrated, angry, and annoyed. The game becomes unfun.

The long rest doesn't have to be during the game session. You can run the entire session without a long rest, do and finish the story, and put them on long rest at the end of the game session to be fresh for the next game session. The more likely thing is the game session ends on a cliffhanger, no rest and pick up from there next session, conclude the story, then rest at the end of that game session to be fresh with all their stuff the following game session. It is a good rule of thumb to let the players long rest once every two game sessions with the occasional do it after the third session because of in game events.

[JellyPooga]

It really doesn't matter how long in game-world time a long rest is - one night, one week, one month, one million years. What matters is how often in real world time game sessions the party gets that rest. Have any justification you want for game world verisimilitude of why a rest is as long as it is; let the players rest already. Real world time and effort is required to play the game. Players wants to use their stuff. They want their stuff back. That is how the game is supposed to work. If they haven't been able to use their stuff for 8 game sessions because you refuse to let them have a week of downtime to rest, the players will be frustrated, angry, and annoyed. The game becomes unfun.

The long rest doesn't have to be during the game session. You can run the entire session without a long rest, do and finish the story, and put them on long rest at the end of the game session to be fresh for the next game session. The more likely thing is the game session ends on a cliffhanger, no rest and pick up from there next session, conclude the story, then rest at the end of that game session to be fresh with all their stuff the following game session. It is a good rule of thumb to let the players long rest once every two game sessions with the occasional do it after the third session because of in game events.

I disagree with this. Gritty Realism changes the in-game expectations and assumptions of how things work in the game world. Spell durations are comparatively shorter, natural healing is reduced by a significant factor, abilities that refresh on a Short Rest become more frequent by comparison, etc. It really does change more than just the narrative pacing. Yes, players like to have fun buttons to push and to have them replenished, but if they're signing up for a Gritty Realism game, they have to understand that their assumptions about how things work under the regular rules do not apply.

Gritty Realism D&D is not the same game as Regular Rules D&D. Features that replenish on a Long Rest might only be used once per adventure; not just once per in-game day or once per session, but weeks of in-game time might pass before those abilities refresh. That's a wildly different dynamic of how that feature functions to how it does using the regular rules, both as a game mechanic and a narrative pace of the game. It's not just about skipping more narrative time before you get to use the feature again; if that's your takeaway from using GR, then I argue that you're using GR wrong. If you're changing spell durations and offering more natural healing or doing anything to "compensate" what you think the "intended use" or function of a particular ability is, then you're using GR wrong. If any of that was intended, or if the same assumptions of how a game session runs was supposed to be the case, then the paragraph that describes Gritty Realism would be a lot longer. It's not. Gritty Realism is intended to change the game, how it runs and what expectations players and GMs should have about things like spell durations and healing (among other things).

There's a reason that the ratio of Short Rest-to-Long Rest duration increases from 1:8 to 1:21. Had expectations been intended to remain even roughly the same, why is a Long Rest in GR 7 days (168 hours) and not 2 and 2/3rd days (64 hours)? Why aren't spell/ability durations explicitly increased? Because the entire purpose of the rule variant is to actually change the game and that includes what certain abilities and class features are capable of. Consider this; GR does more than just increase the duration of a rest, it changes the assumptions about them. Under the Regular Rules, Short Rests are optional and Long Rests are a given, due to usual expectations for time, rest, sleep and the average day; most folk need to sleep for 8 hours every day and lo and behold a Long Rest is 8 hours long. You're always going to Long Rest every day and thus replenish all those HP, spell slots and so forth and missing a Long Rest can be a significant detriment. Short Rests, on the other hand, are not a given; you might not have time or opportunity, or features to take advantage of them. You might go an entire adventure or campaign without ever really taking a Short Rest. That's the expectation. Gritty Realism turns this on it's head. The expected given rest is 8 hours long and that's a Short Rest, not a Long Rest. If the narrative pacing of the campaign forces the players to keep adventuring without taking a week long break then they're having to conserve their Long Rest features for the opportune moment and Classes that have a lot of features that replenish on a Short Rest are getting those back daily and are commensurately getting to use them way more frequently than classes that are more reliant on Long Rest features.

Is the change that GR make more or less fun? That's an opinion that's going to differ from player to player, but no-one can cry foul for expecting a certain playstyle when it was up-front telegraphed that that's not how it works. Gritty Realism D&D is a game that, in a way, harkens back to earlier editions where there weren't so many class features and healing was more difficult. It makes the use of a long rest resource that much more significant, because it's supposed to happen less often in real time. You're not supposed to be casting your entire complement of spells in every game session. You're not supposed to have a full HP bar at the top of every game night OOC or in-game day. It is supposed to make you think twice about entering combat. It is supposed to make you more wary about blowing your big guns too early. This isn't D&D full of bright lights and heroic deeds of daring-do...it's a bit less carefree, more cautious, dare I say a little more cerebral because you don't have the freedom to just charge in guns blazing. When resources are more limited, you have to be more strategic and that's a different style of gameplay entirely. If you're not taking advantage of that by circumventing it, then you may as well not do it at all.

[Dalinar]

It really doesn't matter how long in game-world time a long rest is - one night, one week, one month, one million years. What matters is how often in real world time game sessions the party gets that rest. Have any justification you want for game world verisimilitude of why a rest is as long as it is; let the players rest already. Real world time and effort is required to play the game. Players wants to use their stuff. They want their stuff back. That is how the game is supposed to work. If they haven't been able to use their stuff for 8 game sessions because you refuse to let them have a week of downtime to rest, the players will be frustrated, angry, and annoyed. The game becomes unfun.

Hi, I am literally in a campaign that's been about ten sessions with no long rest and it's amazing for it. Representing about 20 days of in-game time by my estimate.

There are a few key points:

1. Spell durations are generally fine as-is, that's part of the point. See if there are any outliers that come up during play, but I think predicting spell changes that may need to happen based on a system you haven't tried yet seems unnecessary. Do say something during session zero about tweaking stuff down the line, though--expectations are important!

2. Magic items that refresh "next dawn" or whatever are majorly buffed by having fewer and longer long rests, so those you probably WILL want to tweak. An obvious example is Pearl of Power, which in a typical campaign you'd expect to get around once per long rest, but in this situation you'd get repeatedly. Our campaign has a calendar based on its pantheon, so typically X-per-day magic items refresh every eight days on whichever day of the week is thematically appropriate for that item (my Marid Genielock has a Rod of the Pact Keeper which gets its ability back on the day associated with the sea god, for instance). You can do whatever makes sense for you, though.

3. Be willing to add potential non-rest sources of recovery as a part of your encounter design. RAW this means things like health potions, but feel free to brew more interesting stuff. For instance, as our DM has put a ton of work into making a robust travel system, some of the actions available during travel allow for Medicine checks to restore some hit points (we use half the result baseline, or the full result if you have an appropriate consumable medkit), or rolling hit dice (that one also gives you a hit die back after you do it), or using Charisma to grant temp HP to the party (think a weaker version of Inspiring Leader). In a different campaign, we ran across some vats right at the end which could give people the benefit of a long rest, but there was only enough power available to get two people. Or you may have random encounters that could grant things like the above, or just flat-out free rests.

4. The main point of doing a gritty rest isn't necessarily to tweak the encounters-per-day or the deadliness of them, it's to give DMs some amount of say over when the party gets to rest--a party that's able to get long rests super frequently can break a lot of things, especially as higher-level spells start coming online. From that angle, run encounters of whatever difficulty you're used to at first, and adjust as needed.

[Pex]

I stand by my statement. Deny long rests players get frustrated. If one combat takes 2 and a half hours of a 4 hour game session, for whatever reasons, it's possible after two game sessions the party only needs a short rest. Maybe a session or two is more exploration and social interaction where hardly a die is rolled. That could stretch it out. However, players want to use their stuff and get it back. That's how it's supposed to work. Resource management is not gritty realism. Resource management is an important skill to learn even when playing 1 hour short rest, 8 hours long rest. It's all about real world playtime. The spellcaster sees his spell slots depleted. The warrior sees his x uses per day of cool thing at 0. The DM is continuing the story and refuses to give the players the week off they need to rest. That will be a problem. It's also a problem if the long rest was the usual 8 hours but it's still only 5 pm gametime and there's game hours of exploration left to do plus a combat but game session over see you next week. Let the players rest already.

Find the sweet spot ratio for your group of game sessions per long rest. Once in a while it takes one session longer because of game events is fine. Once in a while it's one game session less because game events allow for it players cheer. Solve that a long rest can take however long game time you need to fit the campaign narrative.

[JellyPooga]

However, players want to use their stuff and get it back. That's how it's supposed to work. Resource management is not gritty realism.

No, you're quite correct, but resource limitation does produce a different game dynamic compared to resource surplus and that's the point of GR; to change the nature of how the game plays, including a more limited resource pool.

A GM "refusing" to allow the players to long rest when their resources are depleted is only a problem if the players are more interested in using their features than the narrative; gaming the system rather than engaging the story, so to speak. GR intentionally limits resources more than regular D&D and that's the purpose of it. Ignoring that aspect of the variant defeats the point of using it.

It will, of course, require buy-in from all involved; no-one should be being hoodwinked here. So long as that's the case, players should have an expectation that HP and spell slots and so forth are going to be more limited because that's the game they're signing up for; it's what GR means in this context. If that's not fun for them, they don't play the game.

[Demonslayer666]

The only thing affected by Gritty Realism is the amount of time that passes in game. It doesn't make your game more difficult unless you increase the amount of encounters they face between rests.

The amount of game time that passes is relatively inconsequential unless you are using a doom clock.

I would recommend only slowing down healing, so a long rest does not fully heal you (it works like a short rest for healing, and all other abilities are unchanged). That way you don't need to mess with any other rules.

[JellyPooga]

The amount of game time that passes is relatively inconsequential unless you are using a doom clock.

I can't disagree with this more. Time is what sets the tonal imperative of a game. Not only does it turn assumptions about how the game world works on its head (spell durations, healing, etc.), it informs players what is achievable as a result of those things. The stereotypical dungeon-delve is far more of a significant risk in a Gritty Realism game. As you mention yourself, nothing really changes if you don't increase the number of encounters between rests, which explicitly means that quite a lot changes if you do! If you run a party through a published adventure using normal rules, you can usually expect them to complete it successfully (assuming they're of appropriate level and don't do anything stupid). Run the same adventure using Gritty Realism, with the same layouts, timescales, encounters, etc. and they simply won't. That's not using a doom clock; that's just moving the narrative along at the expected pace. For example, raiding a dungeon being achievable in a day or two, with little long term consequence is not something that happens in GR, but happens all the time in Regular Rules D&D. It's not limited to dungeons either; any kind of encounter that drains resources is that much more significant as is the use of resources to solve them. That changes the dynamic of how encounters flow and how often encounters can be presented within the narrative. Challenges have to be reduced if they're not intended to impact the narrative. Assumptions about what classes and abilities are able to be used have to change. It's all well and good talking about time and encounters in the abstract, but where these actually impact the narrative of an actual game is a very different conversation.

[Sorinth]

Slow healing but leaving spell slots to be refreshed every day just leads to the party wanting/needing a healer who then has to save all their slots for healing and therefore can't get to use most of their cool spells.

[thoroughlyS]

Gritty Realism is about making the game gritty (although not realist).

In other words, it's about making so PCs do *not* have the time to Long Rest in a typically-paced adventure.

So extending the duration of spells or making sure the PCs have enough time to rest run contrary to the only purpose of Gritty Realism.

Worth noting that one of your players want to play a Beast Barbarian, which rely on a Long Rest ressource, and so does the Wizard's dance, magic dance. So you'll have to handle that as well.

I'm actually not a big fan of the name of the variant, because I feel like it misleads people to this conclusion. I use it just to keep the game challenging while only having 1-3 encounters a day. I think the regular rules assumptions of 6-8 encounters per long rest breaks down if you get a long rest every day. I haven't ever been a part of a table where that was true. Most games I've seen tended to stick closer to 1-3 per day, even in official adventures, and that mechanically skews things in favor of long rest-based classes which can nova harder than short rest-based ones. And it does wonky things with in-game timelines. I played through Curse of Strahd over the course of ~1-1 1⁄2 years of real time. And somehow in-game we were trapped in Barovia, rose to 12th level, and killed Strahd in the span of ~6 weeks! My character was part of a romance that felt like a slow burn, but when actually timed means they fell deeply in love in less than a month.

I agree with the DMG when it says "It's a good option for campaigns that emphasize intrigue, politics, and interactions among other PCs, and in which combat is rare or something to be avoided rather than rushed into."

It really doesn't matter how long in game-world time a long rest is - one night, one week, one month, one million years. What matters is how often in real world time game sessions the party gets that rest. Have any justification you want for game world verisimilitude of why a rest is as long as it is; let the players rest already. Real world time and effort is required to play the game. Players wants to use their stuff. They want their stuff back. That is how the game is supposed to work. If they haven't been able to use their stuff for 8 game sessions because you refuse to let them have a week of downtime to rest, the players will be frustrated, angry, and annoyed. The game becomes unfun.

The long rest doesn't have to be during the game session. You can run the entire session without a long rest, do and finish the story, and put them on long rest at the end of the game session to be fresh for the next game session. The more likely thing is the game session ends on a cliffhanger, no rest and pick up from there next session, conclude the story, then rest at the end of that game session to be fresh with all their stuff the following game session. It is a good rule of thumb to let the players long rest once every two game sessions with the occasional do it after the third session because of in game events.

While I agree with the larger point here (make sure the party gets a long rest in a timely fashion), I disagree that players should get a long rest every two sessions. In my opinion, the players should be somewhat conservative with resources, and should get a rest when they are nearly out. And I don't think would happen in two sessions at my table; it's probably closer to four.

A GM "refusing" to allow the players to long rest when their resources are depleted is only a problem if the players are more interested in using their features than the narrative; gaming the system rather than engaging the story, so to speak. GR intentionally limits resources more than regular D&D and that's the purpose of it. Ignoring that aspect of the variant defeats the point of using it.

I don't really want to ascribe playstyles to who will or won't find Gritty Realism to be a problem. I feel like the only time it "should be" a problem is as growing pains when a wizard or paladin is learning that they will also need to conserve resources now.

The only thing affected by Gritty Realism is the amount of time that passes in game. It doesn't make your game more difficult unless you increase the amount of encounters they face between rests.

The amount of game time that passes is relatively inconsequential unless you are using a doom clock.

This is my perspective on the best use case for Gritty Realism.

[Sorinth]

I'm actually not a big fan of the name of the variant, because I feel like it misleads people to this conclusion. I use it just to keep the game challenging while only having 1-3 encounters a day. I think the regular rules assumptions of 6-8 encounters per long rest breaks down if you get a long rest every day. I haven't ever been a part of a table where that was true. Most games I've seen tended to stick closer to 1-3 per day, even in official adventures, and that mechanically skews things in favor of long rest-based classes which can nova harder than short rest-based ones. And it does wonky things with in-game timelines. I played through Curse of Strahd over the course of ~1-1 1⁄2 years of real time. And somehow in-game we were trapped in Barovia, rose to 12th level, and killed Strahd in the span of ~6 weeks! My character was part of a romance that felt like a slow burn, but when actually timed means they fell deeply in love in less than a month.

I agree with the DMG when it says "It's a good option for campaigns that emphasize intrigue, politics, and interactions among other PCs, and in which combat is rare or something to be avoided rather than rushed into."

I'm not a huge fan of the name Gritty Realism for what it does either, but at the same time the idea that purpose of GR is to just give you the same 6-8 encounters but spread out over several days/weeks isn't right either and treating that as the point of GR is even more misleading. Yeah it gets used a lot for that reason, like we see with the OP, but that's not the point behind GR, not least of which because that 6-8 encounters per LR is in itself not an actual target the game intends for.

[Vegan Squirrel]

Several people have made comments in this thread about Gritty Realism leading to DMs denying players rests, and that really doesn't follow. As in the regular rules, rests are primarily in the hands of the players. Sure, the DM knows if an area is safe to rest in (or what the odds of a disrupting encounter are), but the players choose how to navigate the environment and how cautiously to proceed. If a power-hungry DM is being adversarial, the rest rules in play aren't at fault.

Did the players enter a dungeon? Then they knew they were entering a dangerous environment where they might not be able to rest! Their solutions are to leave the dungeon and rest (whenever the players decide), or they can try to create a safe haven within the dungeon, which will require time and resources but may allow them to rest without heading back to town.

If the players are going too many sessions without rests, then it's up to the players to decide why they keep pushing on instead of falling back to recover. Sure, sometimes there are doom clocks going on, but it's still up to the players to weigh their priorities and create a plan of action. They decide how important it is to take time out to rest. And if that play style doesn't work for your table, well maybe the Epic Heroism variant is right for you.

On a different note, the DMG states that players should be able to handle 6–8 medium to hard encounters before needing a long rest. It does not say that every, or even most, adventuring days should contain 6–8 encounters. In my experience, the mere possibility of more encounters on the way is usually enough to encourage a party to conserve resources, and most adventuring days end with plenty of hit points, spell slots, and feature uses remaining unspent. I'm a little confused by the common complaint that players nova every encounter, because I'm used to players conserving as much as they can in case there's something more dangerous in the next area. And rests are pretty easy to come by in our campaigns.

A variant on Gritty Realism that I've had success running is what I dub the One Rest System. Under this system, there are no Short or Long rests, just Rests, which are 8 hours long and follow the requirements of a Long Rest.

The rules changes are as follows:

1. Hit Dice are no longer a resource, they're a class mechanic. When you complete a rest, you roll a single HD of the size for your class, add CON modifier, and regain that many HP. Multiclass characters roll all of their differently-sized HD and average the result. At certain character levels, you roll more HD whenever you rest: 2 at 5th Level, 3 at 9th, 4 at 13th, and 5 at 17th.

2. Spellcasters regain spell slots on a rest with a combined level equal to half their overall character level, rounded up. Warlocks regain all spell slots on a rest, and Sorcerers regain a number of Sorcery Points on rest equal to their Charisma modifier.

3. Features which formerly recharge on a Short Rest now recharge on a Rest.

4. Features which formerly recharge on a Long Rest now recharge on 3 rests. Features with multiple uses which formerly recharge on a Long Rest now recover 1 use per Rest.

The advantages of this system are that it accomplishes the main stated goal of slowing down play and spacing out the time frame of adventures, while still allowing a little more granularity of decision-making about how long to rest. It also integrates more smoothly with different class features, and preserves much of their balance paradigm relative to one another.

I like this system! I've always disliked the 5th edition paradigm that you fully recover everything on a single night's rest. Even in a world with magic and potions, it cuts at verisimilitude. Plus, there's something rewarding about working through a long adventure, where you know you're pushing yourself and not at your best, and still managing to overcome the challenge. Then you take several days after to recover and plan the next one. These rules are a fairly elegant way to slow down recovery to feel more realistic and create that medium-term tension!

[Dalinar]

Several people have made comments in this thread about Gritty Realism leading to DMs denying players rests, and that really doesn't follow. As in the regular rules, rests are primarily in the hands of the players. Sure, the DM knows if an area is safe to rest in (or what the odds of a disrupting encounter are), but the players choose how to navigate the environment and how cautiously to proceed. If a power-hungry DM is being adversarial, the rest rules in play aren't at fault.

Did the players enter a dungeon? Then they knew they were entering a dangerous environment where they might not be able to rest! Their solutions are to leave the dungeon and rest (whenever the players decide), or they can try to create a safe haven within the dungeon, which will require time and resources but may allow them to rest without heading back to town.

If the players are going too many sessions without rests, then it's up to the players to decide why they keep pushing on instead of falling back to recover. Sure, sometimes there are doom clocks going on, but it's still up to the players to weigh their priorities and create a plan of action. They decide how important it is to take time out to rest. And if that play style doesn't work for your table, well maybe the Epic Heroism variant is right for you.

I read this take and there was something bugging me about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Having thought about it a little more, I realized what it is.

Gritty resting, by definition, makes it harder to rest by making rests take longer. That's part of the point (alongside being able to have more narrative time between encounters).

Making a space safe for a long rest under typical rules is as simple as ritual casting Leomund's Tiny Hut. Yeah, you might have to deal with your enemies noting your presence and getting their ducks in a row to try to nuke you when the spell ends, but you've just recovered your party's entire resources, you're probably winning that--and then you can just do it again. Or you can just hole yourself up for eight hours by more mundane means, like fortifying a room. Finding a location that'll be safe for an entire week is way harder, and it is also more costly if it gives the bad guys time to retaliate against your allies. Mind you, not every campaign has a convenient nearby town with a bed-and-breakfast and a potion shop, especially not one that can afford to have you take an extra week or two to clear out whatever existential threat has cropped up for them this month.

There's nothing adversarial about any of this--it's a different style of play where resource conservation is meant to be a more important part of the overall challenge of the campaign, but that's hardly the same thing as a DM refusing to grant the party the benefits of a rest by fiat. I think that's what was bugging me--an "adversarial" or "power-hungry" DM is not the same thing as a DM that just wants to run something more difficult than your standard power fantasy.

[Vegan Squirrel]

I read this take and there was something bugging me about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Having thought about it a little more, I realized what it is.

Gritty resting, by definition, makes it harder to rest by making rests take longer. That's part of the point (alongside being able to have more narrative time between encounters).

Making a space safe for a long rest under typical rules is as simple as ritual casting Leomund's Tiny Hut. Yeah, you might have to deal with your enemies noting your presence and getting their ducks in a row to try to nuke you when the spell ends, but you've just recovered your party's entire resources, you're probably winning that--and then you can just do it again. Or you can just hole yourself up for eight hours by more mundane means, like fortifying a room. Finding a location that'll be safe for an entire week is way harder, and it is also more costly if it gives the bad guys time to retaliate against your allies. Mind you, not every campaign has a convenient nearby town with a bed-and-breakfast and a potion shop, especially not one that can afford to have you take an extra week or two to clear out whatever existential threat has cropped up for them this month.

I see where you're coming from here, and sorry for any offense given. But I kind of feel like we're saying the same thing.

To me, the adventures you describe fit perfectly within the bounds of what I was talking about. It's not convenient to go back to the nearest town, and there will be bad consequences, sure. But it's still the players who are deciding whether to risk it, or to go adventure several weeks of travel away from a safe place to rest. They can typically do things like purchase consumable items (from alchemical flasks to spell scrolls) and as many healing potions as they can get their hands on to mitigate the difficulty, and above all, try to avoid needless combat.

There's nothing adversarial about any of this--it's a different style of play where resource conservation is meant to be a more important part of the overall challenge of the campaign, but that's hardly the same thing as a DM refusing to grant the party the benefits of a rest by fiat. I think that's what was bugging me--an "adversarial" or "power-hungry" DM is not the same thing as a DM that just wants to run something more difficult than your standard power fantasy.

I completely agree! It's not adversarial for a DM to present a game world where it will be harder to rest. But I still would say the players are the ones deciding when to rest, even in that world. The only way it's on the DM is if a) they only provide adventure hooks that are an unreasonable distance away from town and b) they didn't discuss this play style during session zero. And even then, as long as they still allow the players to find their own things to do closer to town when desired, there's no conflict. As long as the players know they're in a dangerous spot where resting isn't feasible, they can't blame the DM for their own decision to be there.

[Saelethil]

I run a slightly modified version of GR where safety and comfort impact how long a long rest takes. It starts at 2 full days in a safe & relatively comfortable area (like an inn in a safe village) and increases in length for factors like roughing it in enemy territory. I also let them take a day to try to make a safe “base camp” that can reduce the length needed in wilderness (potentially down to 2 days). It gives a non-RP reason to take wood working tools and cooking tool proficiencies.

[Sorinth]

I run a slightly modified version of GR where safety and comfort impact how long a long rest takes. It starts at 2 full days in a safe & relatively comfortable area (like an inn in a safe village) and increases in length for factors like roughing it in enemy territory. I also let them take a day to try to make a safe “base camp” that can reduce the length needed in wilderness (potentially down to 2 days). It gives a non-RP reason to take wood working tools and cooking tool proficiencies.

I always like things like this where quality of the rest location is important. I find it's a great way to add importance to some skill checks, come to a farmhouse at night looking for a place to stay and make a Persuasion check to determine whether the farmer let's you sleep in the house, in the barn, or tells you to get lost and you have to camp outside can all give you real mechanical benefits for the skill check. Having Survival checks to find a good spot and build up that base camp which then determines how many days it would take to get a long rest gives some real tangible benefits to the Ranger or Scout Rogue characters who are good at that stuff but normally have it not matter.

Do you still require 8hrs for a short rest as with GR?

[Saelethil]

I always like things like this where quality of the rest location is important. I find it's a great way to add importance to some skill checks, come to a farmhouse at night looking for a place to stay and make a Persuasion check to determine whether the farmer let's you sleep in the house, in the barn, or tells you to get lost and you have to camp outside can all give you real mechanical benefits for the skill check. Having Survival checks to find a good spot and build up that base camp which then determines how many days it would take to get a long rest gives some real tangible benefits to the Ranger or Scout Rogue characters who are good at that stuff but normally have it not matter.

Do you still require 8hrs for a short rest as with GR?

Survival is absolutely a really useful skill in these situations. And yes, I still use the 8 hour overnight rest with a little more wiggle room as far as interruptions.

They also found a dungeon with a rift to the ethereal plane where they noticed that resting was much faster (I.e. base 5e timeframes) but the energy from the rift drew a lot of attention from restless spirits so there was a lot of undead activity, making anything longer than about an hour pretty risky.